


Steampunk in Valentia

by Morgan Hunter (MMHunter)



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Fire Emblem Series
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, F/M, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:00:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22776034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MMHunter/pseuds/Morgan%20Hunter
Summary: In a steampunk AU, tragedy derails the Deliverance's plan to win the war by building a time machine.
Relationships: Clerbe | Clive/Mathilda
Kudos: 3





	Steampunk in Valentia

The funeral took place at night.

There could be no food because of the rations; no fire because of their cover under darkness. No temple, because it was occupied by enemy soldiers.

No burial, because they were such a long way from home.

They laid her down among the grass and flowers, her skin washed clean. Sentries stood in a wide circle around them, swords and guns pointing into the shadows. It seemed wrong to have the weapons when a bullet had killed her, but it would do no good for her closest allies to also meet their ends.

The six of them knelt before her body in turn and spoke the holy words of Mila. Only one did it dry-eyed. He was the soldier who grieved the most, but he also carried the most weight upon his shoulders. He could not afford to let the others see him break. Not with all they had left to do -- all she’d dreamed for them to do.

He knelt for a long time instead, looking at her smooth, serene face. Had all the colour not bled out of her skin, he could have believed she was sleeping. Yellow flowers touched her soft hair and curled around her slender fingers, their petals pale and sickly under the dim light of the moon.

How he wished they’d laid like this together while she’d been alive. How he wished they could have been carefree. It was wrong that she’d only found peace now she’d died. Even more wrong that she was dead. They had been more than leaders -- they’d completed each other. Together, they had been strong.

Alone, he was weak.

He stood and turned to the expectant faces watching him. Something had to be said, but what? What was there left to say now she was gone?

It had only been a few days since he’d asked her to marry him. Even those words had come out wrong, so overwhelming his love had been for her.

She was lying underneath the machine she’d been building when he arrived: the machine that was supposed to take them back to the beginning of their losing war. All he could see were her leather-clad legs and the neat array of tools beside them.

When the tomb-turned-workshop door slammed shut behind him, she slid out very briefly and allowed him a glimpse of her face: stern in concentration at first, then suddenly melting into a soft smile.

“Clive! What news?” She was back under the time machine before she’d finished asking the question, too busy and _much_ too determined to stop working. Her project looked like a cylindrical, silver egg, large enough for five or six people to fit inside and raised off the floor on wooden crates. Clive didn’t know the ins and outs of how it was going to take them anywhere. What he did know was that she was the best mechanic in Zofia, and she’d thrown everything she had into its creation.

And he knew that it was almost ready.

“The Rigelian army is drawing nearer.” Clive crossed to her workbench -- a particularly large and flat sarcophagus -- and sat down, bracing his elbows on his knees and leaning closer. It was what he often found himself doing when he was addressing only her boots. “I’ve given orders for our operations to lessen in number, otherwise I fear that our soldiers may be followed back here.”

“How near?” Mathilda slid halfway out again, wrapping slender fingers around a wrench and taking it back under the machine with her.

Clive sighed. “A day’s ride away. If they come any closer, we’ll have to evacuate.”

“ _Evacuate_?” Something hit the floor under the machine, _chinked_ against the cold slabs, and rolled away.

“Only temporarily -- to protect our soldiers and your time machine.”

“ _Our_ time machine,” she corrected, her voice softening. “Could you pass me another washer?”

He examined the tools and parts beside her legs, picked one up, and crouched down beside the crates to put it in her outstretched hand. Occasionally, when he saw her working like this, he wondered whether he was good for anything at all other than being a dogsbody. Her work was beyond his comprehension.

“You made the right choice about our operations,” Mathilda said, as if she could read his mind. “And I suppose you’re right about the evacuation, too. This is why you’re our leader. But --”

“You lead alongside me.”

“I couldn’t lead without you. But you’ve handed me a nut, not a washer.”

It took him a moment to understand that they were talking about the time machine again. He picked up what he thought he should have given her in the first place and put it in her hand. “My apologies. I thought I’d send Lukas and Forsyth out tonight to keep an eye on the Rigelians. If they make any more progress in the dark, we may have to evacuate the crypt before sunrise.”

“All right.” Her hand vanished back under the machine, and she gave a sudden, short laugh. “Clive, this isn’t a washer.”

She slid out and sat up, grabbing a small, metal ring from the pile of tools herself. When she saw the embarrassment that was written so clearly across his face, her lips quirked into a barely-suppressed smile.

She looked even more beautiful than ever in that moment, her brown eyes softening and her blonde fringe, pushed back and stained at the tips with oil and grease, slowly drifting down to frame her face. His love for her seized his heart in an iron grip, as it did several times each day, and with it came a bolt of terror. The closer the Rigelians came, the more he entertained the thought that they might lose the war completely before the machine was complete. And with those thoughts, he had started to fear for her life more than ever. Their time here, one way or another, was drawing to a close.

“Mathilda,” he said, “marry me.”

The smile fell off her face, and she nearly dropped the washer again. After a moment, she cleared her throat and said, “Are you jesting?”

“No!” Although he hadn’t expected what he was thinking to actually come out of his mouth. His proposal had not been the romantic scene he’d dreamed of in the slightest.

He took her hands and pulled her upright, got back down on one knee, and tried again. “Mathilda, I am serious. I wish for nothing but to be with you until the end of my days. Will you marry me?”

She stared down at him, the most startled he’d ever seen her. Then, all at once, her eyes filled with their usual severe sincerity, and her beautiful smile resurfaced. “Yes!”

Joy rushed through him, and he grabbed her waist as he stood up, lifting her in his arms. Her fingers clamped onto his shoulders as she tried to steady herself, but when he kissed her lips, her hands loosened and slid around his neck. Something extraordinary ignited between them, leaving Clive not with the opinion but the unshakeable _truth_ that she was the most wonderful woman in the world.

She pulled back, breathing heavily, and cupped his face. “When? After the war --”

“No,” he said firmly. “As soon as we are able.”

But it hadn’t been soon enough.

They’d evacuated that night, yet they’d still run into trouble a few days later. He’d never seen death happen so fast. Mathilda been alive beside him one second; killed by a bullet in the next. Her life, and everything they’d had together, snuffed out faster than the flame of a lantern.

The prospect of going back in time had been snuffed out just as quickly. The machine still stood, unfinished, back at the hideout they’d been forced to abandon. Even when the Rigelians moved further away, there was no Mathilda to continue building it: no way of stopping the war before it began -- and no hope of ever seeing her in the past, alive again.

She was gone.

Eventually, it was Lukas who spoke. “We’ve performed the ceremony. We should go back to camp now, while we’re still able.”

The others took his meaning and turned away, walking slowly through the grass towards the sentries. The soldiers kept their eyes straight ahead.

Clive knelt down before Mathilda again, holding her cold hands against his chest. And, at last, he wept.

**THE END**


End file.
